Lily shook her head. “I . . . Like I said, I never called her. I wasn’t thinking. I was just so scared.”
He walked to the window and looked out before pacing back to her. “It’s on your phone. The one that’s back where we started.”
“Yes. Just leave Everett here. Tie him up. Lock him in a bathroom so you know he won’t get out. We’ll go find it.”
He snorted. “You don’t even know where it is.” His gaze slid to Everett like a snail leaving a trail of slime over them. “The boy and I will go. A little adventure, right, son?”
“I can go, Mom,” Everett offered quietly, his voice shaking.
“No. No. You lost it! You said that. But I know that place like the back of my hand. I’ll find it, I swear. I’ve lived and worked there for six years.”
That head tip again, like a lizard studying a beetle. His eyes narrowed, glinting in the dim room. “No. I’ll take the boy. And if the number isn’t on your phone when we find it, I’ll shoot him.”
“No!” she screeched, throwing herself in front of Everett’s body.
“It’s okay, Mom,” he said on a sob. But it wasn’t okay. She couldn’t let Everett get caught in some sort of cross fire between Mendelson and the Herriman police. It had to be her. She angled her whole body in front of him, pressing him back into the couch.
“Take me. I’m begging you. You can be damn sure I’ll find the phone, because I need to keep my child safe. I don’t have an option here. I don’t. You’ll have complete control of me, and I’ll just want to get back to him. You know that’s true.”
He laughed again. “Nah. You want to get me away from him. You want to control me. See the difference?”
She did see the difference, because he was one hundred percent right. She also, through her haze of frantic panic, saw movement in the window, and she had to fight the urge to jerk her head toward it.
What the hell had that been? Had the police somehow found them?
Movement flickered again while she tried to keep her cool. She sat up straight. “You need my thumbprint! To get her number! It’s a fingerprint passcode. You need me with you.” She had to keep talking.
A head outside? A face? But as the figure beyond the window coalesced into recognizable features, she nearly gasped. How was that possible? It wasn’t. She was seeing things.
But as she watched, Jones, his eyebrows raised, held a hand high and pointed up. Up? Then he disappeared. Jones. He was actually here, still here, and . . . he’d arrived to help them? Or maybe she was hallucinating. Maybe her brain was bleeding and she’d had some weird stroke.
Mendelson paced away, his head bowed. “Shit,” he cursed. “All right.” For one brief moment, she felt triumph and sweet, sweet hope. He’d lock Everett in a bathroom where he was safe, and then between her and Jones, surely they could take out Mendelson.
He picked up his gun and stepped close, trying to shove Lily out of the way. She resisted but he pointed the gun over her shoulder. “You’re right. We don’t need him at all.”
“No!” she screamed, trying to push up to her feet. He was reaching for her hair when something cracked upstairs. Nothing loud, just a pop of sound. Mendelson froze, his gaze jumping to the ceiling.
If Jones had been trying to get inside upstairs, Mendelson was now ready for him. He shoved Lily back down and stepped toward the stairway. If he went up, she could get to the front door, unlock it, get Everett out . . .
But he didn’t go upstairs; he only stared up toward the second floor. Movement drew her gaze again, and she was shocked to see Jones right there, back at the window. Something poked past the frame, sliding inside along the wood—a file, a knife—and it easily slipped the window lock free of its hasp. He started to raise the glass, but a tiny squeak stopped his progress.
Lily cleared her throat. “What is it?” she called to Mendelson.
“Shut up,” he ordered, pointing the gun toward her without even looking.
“Is someone alive? Are they still alive?” She had to keep talking. The window scraped gently higher. “Please, I just want my son to live, that’s all. Please let us go.”
“I said shut up!” he bellowed; then he swung toward her, neck bulging, eyes glinting with fury. “Are you deaf, you whore? I said shut your mouth, or I’ll gut your precious son in front of you.”
“Get down,” she whispered to Everett, but she didn’t feel him move.
The window was only half-open, but Mendelson was coming back toward them. Jones had disappeared, but the curtains drew slightly toward the open space, sucked out by the wind.
“I’m sorry!” she cried out, keeping his attention on her.
He grinned at her, pleased with her wild cries.
“I’m begging you not to hurt us.” She stood up as he rounded an ottoman. “Just take me back and I’ll find the phone and call your wife. I’ll find her for you.” She stepped toward Mendelson instead of away, focusing on the little bleeding wounds her teeth had left in his awful face. “I’ll do anything for you.” Another step.
He laughed. “Jesus, you’re pitiful. You all beg the same in the end.”
The curtain shifted. Lily heard Everett gasp. Just a few more seconds . . .
And then there were no more seconds because Jones was only halfway through and the wood creaked, and Mendelson was swinging toward him, gun raised. Jones was stuck in the window, trapped, and all Lily could do was leap.
She hit Mendelson just as the gun went off, knocking him off balance, so he stumbled to the side, arms flailing.
Eyes on the gun, Lily roared and barreled forward, forcing him down just as Jones slid inside and fell to the floor, grabbing for Mendelson’s ankle.
The evil bastard went down hard. Lily heard the dull clunk of his head hitting the wood floor, then the sharper clatter of his gun falling, and she could not let him have it, she could not let him hurt Everett, so she dove for the gun, covering it with her body. “Get down!” she yelled to Everett.
Mendelson roared with fury. She felt an iron grip around her ankle, and she kicked hard with her other foot. A fleshy crack. A deep scream. His grip left her, and she scrambled up, kicking the gun away before she spun to see Mendelson with a hand to his face, blood streaming between his fingers. She hauled back her foot and kicked him again. And again. His hand fell away. His nose was a pulpy mess of blood and flesh. His eyes drifted to half-lidded slits, but they still watched her, glittering with hate.
Lily held his gaze, bracing her body, drawing in a deep breath. “You won’t ever touch my son again,” she said. Then she drew her foot back and kicked him as hard as she could in the temple. His eyes rolled up to show the whites, and he wasn’t looking at anything anymore. Hopefully he never would again.
CHAPTER 36
“I guess I can let him go now,” a man’s voice said dryly.
Everett kept his face pressed into the sofa, eyes squeezed shut, ears ringing and muffled from the gunshot. He didn’t feel anything, didn’t think he’d been hit by a bullet, but what if he had? Or what if his mom had? He didn’t want to know. He couldn’t look.
“Everett,” his mom sobbed, and then she was next to him, her body curved over his, her voice in his ear. “It’s all right, baby. I’m here. You’re fine. We’re fine.”
“Mom?” he cried, as he turned into her, the curtain of her hair shielding him from everything else in the world. He could smell her skin and feel her forehead against his cheek. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay. I’m not hurt.”
“Hold on,” the man’s voice said. Footsteps moved away, then came back. “Everett, can you sit up?”
He felt his mom’s weight lift from him, and then Everett scrambled to right himself in the soft cushions of the couch. A stranger stood before him, a small knife in his hand. Everett stared wide-eyed at the blade for a long moment before his eyes rose to the man’s face. And he wasn’t actually a stranger. He was someone Everett remembered.
“Dad?” he asked.
The man smiled, and then there was no question, because that smile had filled Everett’s days, once upon a time. “Dad!”